Rachel Bluwstein

(1890-1931)

In the Israel of your day, they simply call me “Rachel the Poetess.” I never set out to be a national heroine. I just fell in love with the countryside and nature in David’s Land and had a burning need to express that in my writing.

In Russia I had planned to study art and philosophy. But when my sister and I arrived in the Land of Israel we decided to stay on as Zionist pioneers. It was at Kinneret on my beloved Sea of Galilee that I studies and worked in a women’s agricultural school. There I met my mentor, A.D. Gordon. And it was there that I wrote many of my love poems.

In 1913 I journeyed to France to study agronomy, on the advice of A.D. Gordon. When the Great War broke out in Europe, I returned to Russia where I taught Jewish refugee children. After the war, I returned to David’s Land and joined Deganya, the first kibbutz. But, alas, my life then took a tragic turn when I was diagnosed with tuberculosis and expelled from the kibbutz.

My love for the Land lives on in the hearts of millions who read my poetry or sing my words.